


Crossroads

by vjs2259



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-06
Updated: 2009-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-08 08:01:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vjs2259/pseuds/vjs2259
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during Endgame, Season 4. </p><p>Stephen Franklin was a healer, but could he heal a broken heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ruuger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/gifts).



 

He sat down on the floor beside her, holding her gently but firmly, his trained hands running over her body, checking her injuries while trying to offer what comfort he could. His own body was jolted by the aching sobs that wrenched through her. _'All love is unrequited'_ she told him. And he knew it to be true.

************************

Later, when he'd gotten his medical facility cleaned up, and the few patients housed in MedLab One transferred to other units, he'd gone back into her room. He'd told the others to set up remote monitoring of her condition, and to leave her alone. But he couldn't leave her alone. Not after what she'd been through.

Entering the dim room, he saw her lying on her side, facing away from him. A thin sheet was draped over her, outlining the curves of her lithe, strong body. Trying not to stare, he cursed the memory of her in his arms. He'd thrust it out of his mind, but his hands remembered. His physical response was both instantaneous and inappropriate.

"Where is he?"

Her voice was raspy from hours of tears coursing down the delicate flesh lining her esophagus. Briefly he wondered whether an anesthetic throat spray would help. Probably not.

Turning his attention to her question, he answered deliberately, knowing who she meant. "I put him into a cryogenic sleep. His life signs were negligible, but there was some faint evidence of mental activity." He hastened to add, as she turned towards him, her eyes glinting with hope, "There wasn't enough to work with. Not now. Maybe in the future..." His voice trailed off as he registered the pain in her face. He wanted so badly to ease her guilt, but it was exactly the wrong time. Then again, the time was never right. He sat down on the bed beside her, and looked at her. She had one hand cradled beneath her cheek, like a child. The other lay loosely on top of the sheet, and he covered it with his own hand. Her fingers curled into his palm, and he could feel their loose warmth within his grasp. He tightened his fingers around hers, and felt her grip fasten on him like a drowning swimmer, blindly reaching for assistance.

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked, annoyed at the small stirring of hope within him, hope that somehow he could be her rescuer. Marcus had already taken that position from him. His own mourning, for a friend lost, was delayed in his fixation on her. His patients always came first. She was more than that, of course; a friend, a fellow officer. He smiled grimly. Self-deception apparently was still the order of the day. She was more than that, or at least he had entertained fantasies of a deeper relationship at times. Absently, he stroked her face with his other hand, feeling the soft dampness of her tear-soaked skin under his fingertips.

"Stephen..."

Her voice seemed to falter on his name. Still he loved to hear her say it. "Yes?"

"Am I...I mean, do you think..."

Again, she hesitated, and he waited patiently for her to gather her thoughts, or perhaps her courage. You had to give people time to talk. It was so difficult to reveal what lay beneath the surface. Doctors got used to waiting; you learned more when you didn't push. It had taken him a while to learn that lesson.

"He said he loved me. At the end. I've never been sure...how can you tell? If you love someone, I mean?"

He suppressed his wince at the misery in her voice. "I don't know," he said uncertainly. "When their happiness means more to you than your own?" He kept gently stroking her cheek, tracing the curls of her hair, letting the wispy tendrils encircle his fingers. She'd turned her face into his touch, as if seeking reassurance that he was really there.

"Then I guess he did. Love me that is." She laughed hollowly. "I suspected it, of course. But I never quite believed it." Her eyes, wide and clear, the blue-grey of morning mist, fixed on him. "I never do. I don't think I'm cut out for happy endings."

"I'm not even sure I believe in happy endings," he responded. "It's not your fault, you know," he added gently. "It was his decision." He considered his next words carefully, "It's not your fault if you didn't love him back. Or if you didn't love him as much as he loved you." He saw guilt settle on her like a thick fog in a mountain valley. "Not your fault," he reiterated, almost angrily.

"I know. I just wish I could understand..." her voice rose, tight with anguish, "Why did he do it?"

"Because he loved you. Because he thought you were worth the sacrifice. Maybe because he couldn't imagine a world without you in it." He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. "I understand why he did it," he whispered against her skin, tasting it, feeling her warmth. He knew it was wrong; the wrong time, the wrong place, maybe he was the wrong person, but he couldn't help it. He kissed her eyelids, feeling the lashes flutter against his lips. "I know how he felt."

His hand moved down her face to the column of her throat, outlining tendons that were tense and taut. Slowly, slowly, his hand moved down the slender lines of her body, the light blue weave of the hospital gown concealing little from him. At the same time, his mouth settled onto hers, like a butterfly on an open blossom. As her lips parted gently under his, he pressed harder, unable to restrain himself from tasting the nectar of her kiss. As her body moved under his hands, he encircled her in his arms, half-raising her from the narrow hospital bed. His embrace tightened; he felt himself loosing control. The physician in him tried to remember how recently she had been at death's door. The man refuted it; she was alive, warm and responsive and eager.

After a brief moment, he came to himself and pulled away, almost roughly. She clung to him, then her hands slipped down from their clasp behind his neck to rest lightly against his chest.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice both hoarse with desire and slick with tears.

"This is. This is wrong." He sat back, but took her hands within his, unwilling to lose all contact with her. "Susan, this isn't the right time. It's not fair. Not to you."

Laughing slightly, she said, "Marcus used to say that. Life isn't fair, and it was a good thing." Falling back against the pillow, tears again started to slide down her face. "Good because it meant we didn't really deserve all the bad things that happened to us." At Stephen's look of concern, she swallowed a sob, and went on, "Things don't happen for a reason. They just happen."

Stephen gave a faint smile, "That makes as much sense as anything." He reached out and stroked her hair away from her face. "You need to rest."

"That is not what I need, and if you were any kind of a doctor, you would know that." Her voice was stronger now, and held more than a hint of her usual sarcastic humor.

He was sitting on the bed next to her, almost in the bed with her, one leg tucked against her body, the other hanging over the side. She rose again to a sitting position, and he tucked a pillow behind her back. He was close enough to inhale the spicy scent of her hair. Swallowing hard, he felt her hands touch his chest, then move down, briefly encircling his waist, then moving between his legs where his reaction to her was on stark display. He wasn't sure an dozen ice packs would calm his erection and allow him to walk away, so he gritted his teeth and repeated, "This isn't a good idea."

At this she stopped, and looked away, saying, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't assume..."

That haunted little girl look was on her face again, and he tried to reassure her. "You're not wrong about what I want." Ruefully, he added, "That's pretty obvious. I just think we should wait. Until you're ready. Until you're sure."

Her face went white and she replied, carefully enunciating each word as if they were being etched on her mind with razor blades, "I am ready. And I'm tired of waiting until I'm sure. I'll never be sure. And I've just had an object lesson in what happens when you wait. You lose, Stephen. That's what happens. You lose your chance if you wait."

He looked at her tense, tired face and considered her words. They were at a crossroads, and she was right. He didn't want to lose her. He'd already come terribly close, and there had been enough loss today. Standing, he went to the door and keyed the lock with a command to open only to an emergency override. He set the glass windows to a privacy setting of maximum, and returned to her side. Heart pounding, he raised the thin sheet covering her legs, and folded it neatly at the foot of the bed. He slid in beside her and took her in his arms, gently, afraid to hurt her even though he knew the machine had mended the fractured bones and torn flesh. It couldn't mend a broken heart, but maybe he could help with that. As their lips met, he had the sensation they were hurtling past the barriers of their pasts, their positions, their situation. _Straight on till morning_ , he thought, and with no more hesitation, he lost himself in her need, and his desire.

 

 

 


End file.
